Giorgio Armani / Spring 2012 RTW

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If further proof was needed of what Giorgio Armani has given to women of the world over the years, it occurred a few minutes into his show Monday morning. The theme was aqua—or perhaps more accurately, what happens to aqua when moonlight hits it and causes all sorts of ripples and reflections. In short, we’re talking silvery blues and greens, a touch of mother-of-pearl, and plenty of silks and satins, some printed to look like marble and swirled with blossoms. All of which were utilized for his latest idea of the Armani silhouette: a longer-length jacket set with small shoulders, before flaring out Empire-style and then finishing at the hips, and worn with a new pant shape, which is cut with a slight kick to above a side-slit ankle.

Okay, so you’re getting the picture. Anyway, located among his variations on those were two superchic suits, one dark pearl gray, the other a marine blue. Both were cut with the skill and refinement that you can achieve only if you’ve been manipulating fabric for five decades and counting, and they moved with the kind of sinuosity you’d normally associate with slippery little nothings of lingerie. The jacket was cut on the bias, draped across the body with the merest suggestion of a closure, the skirt cut too on the bias, the slightest hint of a dip in the hem. (And thankfully only that. There have been so many up and down hemlines this season, it has been like looking at the performance of the financial markets on the pages of the International Herald Tribune—that is to say, deeply worrying, and leaving you desperate for a moment of even keel.)

Later, as a complete contrast, Armani offered another twosome that felt just right: Peplum tops and the aforementioned cropped trousers, in color combinations of mineral blue and gray, a look perfectly pitched between sharp and urban, soft and sensual. He then went on to abbreviate his trousers even further, finishing them at the knee and slipping them under the likes of a couple of killer crystal-encrusted short evening dresses with décolletés so deep they’d make a grown man blush. Well, this one almost did anyway.